Sprint Cup: NRA 500 Earns Record-Low Overnight Rating

For all the controversy surrounding the NRA 500, the race earned one of the lowest overnight ratings ever for NASCAR on FOX.

Saturday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup NRA 500 from Texas earned a 3.5 overnight rating on FOX, down a tick from last year (3.6), and down 5% from 2011 (3.7).

Excluding rainouts, the 3.5 overnight is the lowest ever for the spring Texas race (dates back to 1997). As recently as 2007, when the race was still run on a Sunday afternoon, coverage earned a 5.4 overnight.

The 3.5 also ranks as the lowest overnight of the season for any NASCAR Sprint Cup race. The previous low was a 4.0 for the Martinsville race one week earlier. Overall, the NRA 500 ranks as one of the lowest rated NASCAR telecasts ever on FOX in the metered markets; the all-time NASCAR on FOX record-low is a 3.3 overnight.

The race still ranked as the top non-golf sporting event of the weekend on broadcast television.